Pep Guardiola's trusted ally tells him to QUIT Man City as clear reason given

Pep Guardiola should QUIT Manchester City to "regenerate" and look for a "new project", according to his former performance analyst Carles Planchart.

The Spaniard has been at the Etihad Stadium since 2016, after he replaced Manuel Pellegrini as the club's new head coach. He has guided City to six Premier League titles in that time, including four in a row which spanned from 2020/21 and up until the 2023/24 season.

As well as this, Guardiola won City's first-ever Champions League in June 2023 and has lifted a number of other major honours, including the FA Cup twice and the Carabao Cup four times. In total, the 54-year-old has won 382 and drawn 79 of his 543 matches in charge.

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But now, Planchart, who worked with Guardiola for 18 years in spells at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City before leaving his role at the end of last season, believes he needs to step back for a while if he is hoping to prolong his career in management.

Guardiola's contract at City is set to expire in 2027 and he has said before that he wants to take a break from the game once he leaves the Manchester club - something that Planchart would back.

"It's a personal decision he'll have to make. I think a project should last five or six years, no more," Planchart told SPORT. "But not for him, for everyone. Afterward, you have to regenerate. As a friend, I would tell him to look for a new project because he still has a long way to go.

"This is why he's been at City for so many years: they've treated us like family, they've let us work as if we were at home. He didn't feel that way at Barca or Bayern.

"He's a football fanatic. His life is on the green, on the grass. He's a genius, a creator. His greatest strength is how he invents football. The difficult thing in this life is creating; the rest of us are copycats. He's number one at this."

There was talk at some point last season that Guardiola was running out of steam. City went on a run at one point where they won just once in 13 matches, representing the worst run of form in his managerial career.

Reflecting on last season, where City ended up finishing third in the Premier League and improving near the back end of the campaign, Planchart added: "Sometimes you lack energy, and when you get into a bad dynamic, it's hard.

"In football, you always have to be at 100 percent. We had injuries, people were at the end of their careers.

"There was a drop in performance, even among the staff. The lack of energy forced us to fight just to get into the Champions League, and it was an achievement. We also lost the cup final; it was punishment for a poor season."

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